Anyway, I do recognize that Trump may make things worse and he already contributed to this mess when he moved the USA embassy to Jerusalem (among many other things he did, with help from Nikki Haley in the UN General Assembly). — Eros1982

Not to judge your voting intentions since I can sympathize with your frustration but it's not really a question whether Trump will be worse (he will), so you might as well be honest and own the decision.

And it should be easy for you to look it up yourself but you apparently prefer to stay misinformed. Can't help people who are unwilling to help themselves.

Not surprisingly, what you want to see and what is the case are two very different things.

I remember when the right used to be all about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and defunding big bad government institutions like FEMA. I mean, they still are all about that, but you know...

Even if we don't know the full story what we do know already paints Netanyahu in a bad light. He was warned by the Egyptians of an attack on Oct 7. Netanyahu in his arrogance ignored those warnings and he's been trying to make this crisis worse in an attempt to save face ever since.

A long war in Lebanon can be a double edged sword though. It helps Netanyahu extend his forever war and stay in power for the time being, but it can eventually become a mess which would hurt him politically especially if it results in alot of Israeli casualties and it doesn't help get people back to their homes. Hezbollah isn't Hamas and they still haven't completely eliminated the latter after a year of constant fighting.

The political reasoning is to get back the tens of thousands of Israelis that have been evacuated from Northern Israel, and hence the likely goal is to "destroy Hezbollah" altogether. — ssu

Exactly. If they were really concerned with getting the Israelis back and saving the hostages in Gaza (which are probably completely doomed so much as they are still alive) there was an easy way out which Bibi refused to take.

As for the land invasion itself, if history is any indication a ground invasion wouldn't be a quick and painless operation. If there is any reason why Netanyahu doesn't want to start a war with Iran right now it would be because Israel thinks it is necessary to defang Hezbollah as a threat altogether before doing anything else (at least if Kushner's statement is anything to go by). They can still bomb Israel hard even at this stage.

Yet a large scale attack would mean that the US would give a green light, which isn't actually so difficult as already the US has committed to the defense from incoming Iranian missiles. If Joe Biden (and Kamala) are started to be called chickens or whimps, that might easily get the US to side with it's ally even during an election. — ssu

Apparently the US is coordinating with Israel on a response unlike last time. Oddly enough that makes me feel a bit more confident about the possibility that it won't be too escalatory (or be specifically designed with an offramp in mind) despite the fact that the US is getting involved. That being said, I'm sure the Israelis may try to do their own secret operation, though there is only so much they can do unilaterally. I can certainly see it avoiding oil infrastructure for the reasons you described unless the Israelis really want to humiliate Biden even more.

War is the main interest of the current Israeli government to cover the corruption and power abuse of Netanyahu. He was lucky with the attack on October 7th. He would be locked up in prison otherwise. — javi2541997

Netanyahu is interested in more war to stay out of jail. The rest of his coalition are just in it for the body count.

As Israel and Iran are distant from each other, there is a geographic reason that limits warfighting capabilities. Hence both sides will talk about limited actions: they simply cannot fight the war in any other way. — ssu

Of course both sides can only fight using air strikes but if Iran wanted to cause more damage they probably would've done so. Same with Hezbollah. Apparently alot of their strike here was intercepted like last time, and likely it was by design. They are clearly telling Israel right now that they are done and if Israel is done then things will cool down.

Now tell me how Netanyahu won't strike back when he has said the above? When you say Iran will pay and that Israel will retaliate against it's enemies, it would be quite difficult then to follow by not doing anything. — ssu

Of course I'm not suggesting that I expect Netanyahu will hold back. It was honestly surprising that he even held back in April. Like I said, Israel, helmed by Netanyahu, wants to escalate as far as possible. They really want to strike their nuclear facilities, which they can't really do by themselves, but again that's where the US comes in.

Last time the two warring parties refrained their military actions, but likely this time it will be far more. — ssu

Iran still refrained this time around. The problem has always been Israel and their desire to drag everyone into a war. It doesn't matter how much the other sides want peace if one party believes a war is in their best interest. That's how WWII started.

A complete and utter failure of the Biden policy of letting Israel do whatever it wanted in Gaza in the hopes that it won't do whatever it wanted in Lebanon.

I don't see why Israel needs the US to fight its war for it. These past few days Israel decapitated Hezbollah. Hamas has been neutered. Israeli intelligence is unmatched. MBS just made a statement that he couldn't care less about Palestinians. A good portion of the Arab world cheers today at the death of Nasrallah while in the west they protest - Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese. — BitconnectCarlos

And the US better stay out of it too. A ground invasion is probably where this is heading (given that air strikes are insufficient to destroy alot of Hezbollah's tunnels and military infrastructure), but as long as Iran and the US don't get dragged in, then the IDF can enjoy being bogged down by such an adventure like they did in 2006.

Springfield was one of the many dying towns back during 2016 (one of the places that would've voted for Trump back then on his false promise to bring back jobs) before being revitalized as immigrants started coming in and bringing much needed labor to the region. This isn't to say that the infrastructure isn't being strained as a result of such a large influx of people, but there's a reason why the mayor of Springfield and the governor of Ohio, both Republicans, aren't pushing for mass deportations like the rest of their party are.

That was very stupid of him. But, I am wondering: does this guy take any advices from other people? — Eros1982

He does but that doesn't mean he listens to them. He even said it himself in one of his rallies that they keep telling him to focus on policy instead of personal attacks... before going on personal attacks.

The problem with trying to give him advice is that he ultimately rejects the very premise of it. It implies that 1) other people know something he doesn't and 2) he has to follow what they say. For someone with his ego, it's completely unacceptable.

Why didn't he do this during his first term? Unlike Harris he was actually president and actually did a big tax cut bill for the ultra wealthy.

Trump must've been so disappointed he wasn't able to make a political stunt out of this. That was like, his entire reason for going.

In other news: Harris has her first interview tomorrow. I think she should do several interviews, not just one big one. Too easy for Fox News to demonize if even the slightest phrasing is off. — Mikie

Places like Fox are inevitably gonna move the goal posts no matter how many interviews Harris does but I agree she should be doing more of them if just to clarify her positions. Or get Walz out there doing interviews since he's a better speaker. Apparently he never read from a teleprompter until hitting the national stage which is a very welcome trait considering who the Dems were/are running up to this point.

It's just unfortunate that it's coming from this third side that claims to be above the two party system. As someone who's supportive of more party representation in US politics I think RFK did a disservice to the whole movement by selling out the way he did as apparently some smaller third parties are gonna go under because of his decision. Personally I don't think he ever meant to serve as anything other than a spoiler candidate for the Dems (and I am absolutely not shocked at how this ended up), but based on the reaction from some of his supporters, they seem pretty upset at this. At least the Libertarian and Green parties are still there despite this being their 15th cycle of being irrelevant. Bobby couldn't even last one.

I was willing to give him some attention back when he ran because of his record as an environmental lawyer. Lost it when he said that his approach to climate change was to leave it to the free market. Like it sounds good for the right wing audience on Fox that propped him up, but god they have no idea what progressives care about.

In all likelihood Trump probably promised him a position as the Secretary of Health and Human Services which is where he would likely have influence. So add anti-vaxxer leading the department of health to the growing list of dangers of a second Trump term.

So RFK will drop out on Friday, and will endorse Trump. Big surprise.

Shows what a spineless weirdo he always has been, and now solidifies his place as having one of the worst judgments in history. — Mikie

Funny how he went from being a "useful chaos agent" according to Steve Bannon to ultimately being a drag on the Republicans so much that they had to hang him up. I'm guessing the right by propping him up so much in the media wanted to recreate the Bernie magic that divided the left and got us Trump in 2016. Fortunately they had no idea what actually made Sanders popular and ended up making someone who was more likely to peel votes away from the right instead. The anti-vax stuff wasn't gonna appeal to anyone except the far right who still obsesses over COVID to this day, and although Kennedy could've adopted a more pro-Palestinian stance to contrast with Biden, he ultimately ended up being more pro-Zionist than Genocide Joe.

Price controls. Of all the hare-brained schemes. Even WaPo and CNN are against the idea. Price controls inevitably create shortages and bread lines. Nixon's price controls failed. Price controls always fail. They constrain supply and increase demand. Exactly the opposite of what you want. — fishfry

Politically it will probably work out for her because of how uninformed voters are which is what I suspect her play here is. Say what you want about how viable her policies are but polling does show that people blame corporate price gouging for alot of the inflation and they want the government to do something:



Populism sells and when people see the "experts" at CNN and WaPo balk at these ideas and you have folks like Larry Kudlow on Fox saying that corporate greed is a myth they just see the establishment defending the status quo. I mean if CNN is gonna bring on people like this:

When prices are high, in most cases, the best policy action in response is actually taking no action, Roberts, the chair of Weber State University’s economics department, told CNN.

That would cause consumers who are deterred by, say, high prices of beef, to instead purchase another type of meat or protein. That helps keep beef on the grocery store shelves for people who want it enough to pay the higher prices.

It's hard to see them as not being out of touch with the concerns of consumers. I'm not saying they're wrong but if you're worried about the price of beef this week then that's the last thing you want to hear.

The same goes for her housing policy where first time homebuyers will probably be more excited about direct subsidies over building more housing (though Harris says she's doing both). Remember your average voter doesn't understand the difference between cooling inflation and deflation (what they would call an actual decrease in prices) and still needs to be lectured on how marginal tax rates work. At the end of the day none of these policies will get implemented simply because of how dysfunctional congress is but like her adopting Trump's stance on tips and one upping Vance's $5000 CTC idea with a $6000 CTC, Harris is trying to win an election by promising alot of nice things. Same for Trump too, to be honest. It's all about the vibes.

Depends on the details of her actual policy, though based on what I've read it sounds like antitrust enforcement. Maybe when she sits for an actual interview we'll find out more.

That being said I do think that alot of Harris' policies won't be done at all if only because congress (especially if Republicans keep the Senate as they look likely to do) won't allow it. The issue with Trump's plans on deporting millions of immigrants and imposing a 20% tariff on all imports is that he can do it unilaterally. I'm not worried about him gutting Obamacare because the GOP congressmen are smart enough to not play along with his schemes. He would do it if he had a big red button on his desk to press, but he can't, however such a button does exist for starting a trade war like he did in his first term.

I still feel like this is an issue about Trump's policies that is underdiscussed. People seem to think that Trump will fix inflation somehow but he literally plans to implement a 20% tariff on all imported goods and unlike his other crazy ideas he probably has unilateral authority to do so:

Yes. They still try to avoid screwing with the economy when an election is close. — frank

Well I'd prefer it if they focused on not screwing over the economy because they're worried about the political optics. I suspect that that was the reason why Trump has been getting a pass legally for his multiple crimes. Both the Republicans and Democrats were too chicken to shut him down permanently after Jan 6 and now here we are.

He'd have to install mechanisms for overriding the chairman. I guess he'd give it his best shot. — frank

Trump has made it clear that if he is elected it will have to answer to him. — Fooloso4

Apparently he wants to override the Fed so yeah.

The Fed isn't supposed to make rate changes during an election cycle, but they're probably going to have to in September. They're expected to lower the rate in keeping with jobs data. Wall Street will party and the economy will look good. That's bad for Trump, obviously. — frank

I thought the Fed was apolitical and does whatever it wanted? Their one job is to not let the economy crash regardless of the political narrative it creates. I mean Trump and the Republicans will be mad at a booming economy if it helps their enemies but let's be honest Trump would be harassing the Fed every day to cut rates if he were president right now.

That bill is a total fake. It's designed to codify the ongoing disaster but get Republicans to sign on to it. They wisely declined. — fishfry

So some say on the right, but the bill is pretty popular based on the polling I've seen and some swing voter focus groups seem to be upset at Trump for what he did. Harris was smart to use it. They'll be running ads of Lankford saying it's a good bill from now until November. They're not gonna win on the issue of course but they can always muddle it and weaken an attack line.

But you are agreeing with my point. Yes she is trying to tack to the center and renounce or deny many of her former leftist positions. So why pick a leftist as veep? That undermines her centrism. — fishfry

Because labels don't matter as much over policies. She's getting rid of the unpopular policies while keeping the popular ones. People care about border security more but they probably don't want kids to starve in school. That's the problem with using a single label to describe a large set of unrelated beliefs.

Both Trump and Kamala are appealing to their respective bases, and nobody's making a play for the center. Whichever one of them figures out that elections are decided in the center will win. — fishfry

That implies that centrists always win which is certainly not true. The centrist coalition of Macron collapsed in France just recently to both the far-right and the far-left.

I think it's the tampons in the boys' room that's triggering some on the right. I actually don't even know much about his actual policies in office. — fishfry

It's a pretty extensive record (just coped and pasted a list I found online):

- universal free school meals
- legal weed
- carbon free electricity by 2040
- tax rebates for the working class up to $1,300 (making under $150k per year)
- 12 weeks paid family leave
- 12 weeks paid sick leave
- banned conversion therapy
- red flag laws for guns
- universal background checks for guns
- automatic voter registration
- free public college (under $80k)
- ban on PFAS (forever chemicals)
- $2.2 billion increase in k-12 school funding
- sectoral bargaining for nursing home workers
- opposed Wall St bailouts in 2008
- voted against outsourcing deals
- supports lifting a moratorium on nuclear energy in Minnesota
- 100% rating from Planned Parenthood
- banned non-compete clauses
- raised minimum wage for small businesses
- raised taxes on multinational corporations
- protected gender affirming care
- banned medical providers from withholding care over debt
- protected construction workers from wage theft
- massive Minnesota infrastructure bill
- backed the Iran deal

I don't think you'll like all of them but there's a reason why progressives wanted him.

He should be hitting her on immigration. Instead he's yammering about her race. And the other day at a rally he attacked the Republican governor of Georgia. He's so undisciplined. He just can not focus on what's important. I think he's lost a step too. In 2016 when he insulted people he was funny. Now he's just angry. This race could go either way. The guy is 78 and he's looking every day of it lately. — fishfry

In 2016 he was a new face and people at the very least loved that he shook up politics. Nowadays he's old news which is why I think he's likely to lose. The fundamental contrast in this race where it's old vs. new just doesn't work out to his benefit where it did with Biden when it was strength vs weakness or with Clinton when it was the outsider vs the corrupt insider. Kamala may not be the best candidate but she's a new face in a race where people wanted anything but Biden or Trump again, and that will probably be what will convince those undecided swing voters at the end of the day. People hated the status quo in 2016 and thought they had nothing to lose if they elected Donald, even if they had serious reservations about him.

It'll bring energy prices down. Biden's energy policy, which is also Harris's, has been terrible. Americans know that. — fishfry

People aren't complaining about that as much now. They're complaining about the price of groceries which haven't really gone down with gas and likely won't if it goes down any further.

Like I say ... Kam tacks to the center and she picks a proud socialist as her veep. Bad pick. Not to mention today's Stolen Valor brouhaha. Walz is technically in violation of a Federal felony, one that he himself voted into law. Which by the way is a bad look for Kam's campaign in that the issue caught them by surprise. They should have vetted him more closely and been prepared to deal with the military stuff. — fishfry

Certainly seems like they moved on from tampons and the BLM riots, though we'll see how effective this line of attack is. As a layperson who understands nothing about the military, this whole tactic just comes across as a little gross. If this were a case of Walz just outright lying about being in the military entirely then I can understand but it seems like they're splitting hairs about whether he was in combat or not and seemingly undermining the decades of service he's done otherwise. That and the fact that their guy actively avoided the Vietnam draft due to bonespurs yet feels like he can attack war heroes for what they've done.

I believe his leftism draws attention to the very leftism that Harris is trying to move away from. — fishfry

She's certainly moving right on some issues but not others. One example is the border where she's clearly just attached herself to the bipartisan border bill Trump killed. Walz it seems is going along with that pivot. Same with her pivot on fracking. That being said, she's still in favor of alot of the things that Walz did and is clearly not choosing to moderate on every single issue. I guess she's betting on labels being less important than the actual policies themselves.

In fact I read somewhere that if the voters decide on likability, Harris and Walz win; and if they decide on the issues, the economy and immigration and so forth, Trump and Vance win. — fishfry

I do think Harris and Walz are better on the issues if you go into detail about them, which is why I think it could backfire if the GOP start attacking Walz for legalizing weed or giving Minnesota paid family leave. Trump and Vance are able to win on the issues if it's more vibes based though. People feel like the economy sucks because of high prices. What does Trump actually plan to do about it? Apparently drill more and flood the global market in oil to crash gas prices but that isn't gonna bring grocery prices down obviously. One thing that may make it worse is his idea for a 10% tariff on all imported goods (and 60% on Chinese goods), which if you believe that higher taxes means higher prices for the consumer as it trickles down, would obviously be inflationary to the average voter. Trump assures us that it's not inflationary somehow but...

He did say that socialism is like neighborliness. I expect the GOP to put that on endless loop. — fishfry

Yeah that answer specifically was why I compared him to Bernie. He doesn't adopt the label like he does but he certainly doesn't shy away from it either.

If this issue overall has no impact on voters then there goes one of the biggest lines of attack against Walz.

Then what does she do? For veep, she picks a leftists who is tied to the BLM/Antifa riots. She puts the very issue that the tacked away from, right dead center in her path. Now her role in bailing out violent felons who went on to offend again will come out. Now Walz's 48 hour delay in calling out the National Guard will come out. Kamala was trying to paint herself as a centrist, and Walz reminds everyone of her leftist greatest hit. — fishfry

Yeah I think there's one problem with that:

You can say that about people's impressions about Kamala (at least she's not old and dying) but Walz is genuinely a pretty solid pick if you're a progressive. Also it's already been 2 weeks and it still feels like things are riding high for the Democrats. What's also amazing is how ill prepared Trump was for this obvious possibility. You would've thought he would've come up with a stupid nickname by now, unless he's genuinely going with "Kamabla".

The selection of Tim Walz has been publicly supported, afaik, by AOC, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Manchin and a gang of well-known Never/former Trumpers – across the ideological spectrum from far left to center-right (at least). — 180 Proof

Yeah I'm actually surprised how much the party has unified around him like they did Kamala. Walz sounds like a more effective, relatable, and most importantly younger Bernie, even down to the lack of actual presidential ambition and brushing off the accusations of the "socialism" label (for the record he doesn't adopt it explicitly like Bernie but he seems more focused on whether the policies discussed help people, which I like). I have no idea where the Democrats got him from. People who have been saying that Kamala just picked a younger Biden because he's an old white man are way off, same with the people who compare him to Tim Kaine.

Terrible pick. Kam just blunted the momentum of her terrific last two weeks, and breathed new life into the Trump/Vance campaign. — fishfry

I've always wondered how Republicans would try to run against a Bernie like figure, which Walz does remind me of. He's a progressive who not only supports but has enacted a number of left policies and more importantly doesn't seem to shy away from it. Hell he even kind of looks like him. The only difference is that instead of a being a grumpy old man he comes across as a relatable dad (plus being more on the large side).

Of course the problem for the GOP is that once you get into the details of his ideas, they're actually pretty popular based on most polling I've seen. I mean the right will still try to paint Walz as a "radical" who would try to turn the Midwest into Venezuela but then again they would literally say for any Democrat even if the VP pick were Joe Manchin. I think there's a good chance such a move could very well backfire on them if they're gonna try saying that popular policies like free school lunches are a bad thing.

Between this and his VP pick, I wonder if one or more of his advisors are intentionally trying to sabotage him. — Michael

I suspect Biden and Trump share the same staff.

Whatever you say.

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Well, now that the Democrats have gotten rid of Biden, what are the chances that the GOP is gonna get rid of their weirdo? No, not the old one that's 78 and rambles incoherently on occasion but his running mate who apparently is so bad that he's dragging his boss down. It's only been a week since he was chosen but now there's already talk about replacing him.

Just last week: Biden tanking with donors and polls. Trump shot and gets a photo-op. Picks a VP. RNC convention. Elon Musk endorses. One lawsuit thrown out.

Old news. He already peaked, and too early. All downhill from here. Could still pull it off, but what a difference a week makes from the hysterics. — Mikie

I don't think it was intentional but Biden dropping out right after the RNC when the GOP was doing a victory lap with Trump's vanity VP pick was probably the worst time for that to happen to them. The race is reset and the party is now stuck with a flawed running mate, a wasted convention, and thousands of carefully crafted Biden dementia ads that will probably never see the light of day.

He's the old one now. Kam at least has put some youth into our political process. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. — fishfry

If anything we can now test the theory of whether replacing one of the two unpopular candidates would ensure their victory. I mean Kamala is far from a generic Democrat, but it seems like voters don't really know much about her apart from her being VP and both sides are scrambling to define her right now so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

It’s nutty how ruthless the DNC is compared to the RNC, which couldn’t even stop a Trump. — Mikie

To be fair, Trump earned his nomination in 2016 while Biden didn't in 2024. As much as he brags about 14 million votes in the primary he was running as an incumbent against an anti-vaxxer, a hippie lady, a progressive talk show host who wasn't even born in the country, and a no-name guy named Dean Philips. He has no true base of support and because of that it's far more rational to just push him out. The RNC can't do the same with their candidate lest they piss off the cult.

Coming from the same people who until last week denied that JB has dementia. — Lionino

I wonder if the September debate is still on. Of course Trump may dip out of it like he did during the primaries now that he's going up against someone who's not a senile old man but we'll see.